Over the past few decades healthy cooking has become more popular as a result of the medical profession having identified the ties between serious ailments such as heart failure, diabetes and even cancer to the food being consumed and to the method of preparing such food. More specifically it was determined that excessive consumption of unsaturated oils and animal fat should be avoided.
To satisfy the need for healthier cooking consumers have been offered recently a variety of electric cooking appliances that satisfy that need, such as: Rotisseries for roasting chicken for example while allowing the fat to drip away from the meet; Air fryers where “French Fries” can be cooked in hot air to achieve similar results to deep frying the fries; Slow Cooker for preparing stews and other dishes without the use of oil and where lean cuts of meat can be cooked to a tender consistency. Each of these products is designed to perform a specific mode of cooking as will be specifically described in the following paragraphs.
Rotisseries, namely appliances where meat, typically chicken, turkey or other fowl are being cooked by rotating the food to be cooked in front of or underneath a radiant source of heat is not new. In fact this type of cooking goes back millennia. More recently a typical rotisserie is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,325,484 to Backus et al titled: Enclosed Rotisserie with added Convenience. The rotisserie in the '484 patent includes a cooking compartment, drive means for turning the food, hinged door and radiant heaters. While serving well as a product for roasting chicken and other fowl to perfection the product would not be useful otherwise and would have to be put away once the chicken is cooked, as it takes a lot of space on the counter top.
Recently, in an effort to replace deep fried food especially deep fried slice potato wedges (French Fries) with a cooking method where hot air is used to “air fry” such French Fries. US Publication 2008/0163764 discloses such an appliance. While serving well for air frying and other similar dishes the product would not be useful otherwise and would have to be put away once the French Fries are cooked, as it takes a lot of space on the counter top.
There are many other appliances available on the market that are effective in cooking one specific type of food or another, but at the end of the cooking session that product would have to be put away as it takes a lot of space on the counter top. Along with other benefits and features, the appliance according to the present invention is suited to cook and bake a variety of dishes, such as: roasting chicken, grilling a steak, baking cakes, baking pizza, steaming rice, slow cooking a meal, dehydrating fruit and vegetable, and popping corn kernels to prepare Pop-Corn.